About the Issue

The US invaded Iraq ten years ago, on the widely discredited pretext that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, representing a threat to the US and other nations. This pretext was heavily promoted by collusion of the Bush administration and the major US television networks. In stark contrast to the Vietnam era, a combination of political and corporate interests have very deliberately limited American exposure to the realities of the current US military activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and now including numerous other nations via drone warfare. Whereas the American people had the privilege of bold and fearless journalism only a couple of decades ago, our mainstream media now bring us mainly propaganda. In recent years, we have witnessed also the rise of another type of war: Concentrated, international capital consuming people and nations without prejudice, and the very Earth itself. We see it operating in thirty years of successive financial bubbles, most recently in 2008. In the US, we now have a grotesque maldistribution of wealth as shown in this video. These wars are all one. The military and geopolitical mayhem in Iraq are very profitable to Wall Street and America’s military-industrial-congressional complex. This is precisely what President Eisenhower warned us about sixty years ago. We need to recognize the underlying dynamics of our suicidal pro-corporate policies, (including the Citizens United decision), our failure to rein in financial institutions deemed “to big to fail or jail”, and our national addiction to war are all part of the same pathology. Otherwise, how can we end this war?

What can you do?

Don’t believe what you see on mainstream television news. Get some alternative and international news. Sources include the BBC, The Guardian, Democracy Now!, Truthout, Common Dreams, The Real News Network, YES! Magazine, Mother Jones and others.